Williana Burroughs (1882-1945) was an American teacher, writer, and social and political activist.
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Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan and this is Encyclopedia Womannica.
Today’s politician was an American teacher, writer, and social and political activist. As a candidate for the communist party, she was one of the first Black women to run for office in New York. Please welcome Williana Burroughs.
Williana “Liane” Jones was born on January 2, 1882 in Petersburg, Virginia. Liane’s mother had been enslaved until she was 16, and little is known about her father who died when Liane was just four years old. Liane had two siblings, Nellie and Gordon.
After Liane’s father’s death, Liane’s mother moved the family to New York City with the hope of finding greater opportunity. She got a job as a live-in cook soon after their arrival, but the position didn’t allow children. As a result, Liane and her siblings were placed in the Colored Orphan Asylum in Harlem. Liane spent seven years at the Asylum, until her mother was able to reclaim her children. After that, the family lived on the West Side of Manhattan.
Liane attended New York City public school where she excelled as a student. After graduation, she enrolled at New York City Normal College, now Hunter College, with hopes of becoming a teacher. Students and professors took notice of Liane’s strong academic performance and particularly the strength with which she stuck to her convictions, a trait that would serve her well later in life. Liane’s grades put her at the top of her class of 50, in which she was the only Black student. She graduated in 1903 with full teaching qualifications.
After graduation, Liane spent six years teaching first and second grade at a public elementary school on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. She was the only Black teacher at a school that predominantly served new immigrant communities who settled in the neighborhood. During this period, most of her students were children of recent Jewish immigrants, many of whom did not speak English. As a result, Liane became a specialist in teaching English as a second language.
In 1909, Liane married her longtime boyfriend Charles Burroughs, and gave birth to her first daughter Alison. Burroughs was a protégé of WEB Dubois who made a living working for the U.S. Postal Service. He was also a well-known Shakespearian actor in the city. After the wedding, Liane left her teaching job to stay home and take care of her young daughter.
Between 1909 and 1925, Liane had three more children. By 1925, however, she was ready to get back to teaching. After first working as a substitute teacher in Flushing, Liane took a job at a public school in Jamaica, Queens where she worked with children who were learning English.
That same year, Liane became increasingly involved in the New York City Teachers Union. She was particularly active in the “Rank and File Caucus” which was led by Communist members. In September 1926, Liane joined the Communist Party, then known as the Workers Party or the Workers Communist Party. She joined under the pseudonym “Mary Adams” because of concern that public Communist support would lead to losing her job. Liane continued to use this pseudonym throughout the 1920s and early 1930s.
Liane began writing articles for Communist and Black newspapers including the Harlem Liberator and the Daily Worker. She wrote under her own name and under her pseudonym, and published dozens of articles between 1928 and 1934.
In July 1928, Liane embarked on a trip to the Soviet Union with her two youngest sons, Charlie and Neal. She had been invited to the 6th World Congress of the Communist International in Moscow to serve as a representative of the American Negro Labor Congress, an auxiliary component of the American Communist Party. While she and her sons were there, they also toured schools and summer camps, which greatly impressed Liane. She was so impressed that she decided to enroll both of her sons in a Soviet boarding school.
In 1930, Liane took a year-long sabbatical from teaching. She told friends and colleagues that she would be spending the year in Germany, but instead Liane went to the Soviet Union where she worked for the Communist International, an organization that advocated for world Communism.
Upon her return to New York City in 1931, Liane began teaching again, and also became increasingly involved in social and political activism. She was especially active in the campaign to defend the Scottsboro Boys, nine black teenagers who were accused of raping two white women in Alabama. She was also Chairwoman of an organization that advocated for Isidore Blumberg, a New York City teacher who lost his job in the public school system because of his political leanings.
As Liane became increasingly vocal in her advocacy, the public school system took notice. After speaking out at a New York City Board of Education meeting in 1933, she was fired for “conduct unbecoming to a teacher and prejudicial to law and order.”
After losing her job, Liane was no longer afraid of repercussions due to her political affiliations. Liane agreed to run as the Communist Party’s candidate for New York Comptroller in the 1933 election, and as the candidate for New York Lieutenant Governor in the 1934 election. She lost both times.
In 1935, Liane decided to head back to the Soviet Union, where she took a job as a copywriter at an English language newspaper called Moscow News. She worked there until 1937 when she took a job at Radio Moscow, the radio news service of the Soviet government, as an announcer and producer for English language broadcasts.
The plan was for Liane and her two sons to eventually move back to the United States.
In 1940, Liane began suffering from health issues and requested leave from the Soviet government to return to the United States for medical treatment. This request was denied due to the scarcity of native English speakers available for the Soviet war effort. Liane made the same request in 1942, and was again denied. Finally in 1945 with World War II coming to a close, Liane was finally allowed to leave with her youngest son.
Well aware of Liane’s bids for office as a Communist and her later work for the Soviet government, the FBI, led by J. Edgar Hoover, were ready to intercept Liane upon her return. FBI agents waited for her at New York Harbor on the day of her expected arrival, but luckily for Liane, she and her son were actually scheduled to arrive in Baltimore. They managed to completely avoid the FBI welcoming party.
Two months after her return to New York City, on December 24, 1945, Liane died at the home of a friend in Manhattan.